Thursday, June 28, 2012

With 'the absence of memory', an atmospheric piece featuring the works of Marcus Inkpen and Hans Arkeveld, Chic Aeon becomes the most prolific machinima creator for MachinimUWA V, with four works in all.

This machinima is now part of the L$725,000,MachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdom. MachinimUWA V's theme is a tribute to the Centenary of the University of Western Australia and UWA'sNew Courses 2012.Entries toMachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdomclose on the 30th of June 2012 and seeks for the creation of machinima with any storyline that fits to the theme of 'Seek Wisdom' so long as at least ONE of the 100 Treasures from UWAform part of the story. ClickHEREfor full details and landmarks to the locations of the treasures in Second Life.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Jay Jay Jegathesan (SL: Jayjay Zifanwe) and Professor Sarah Higley (University of Rochester, NY) presented a workshop in Barcelona this morning.at the International Conference on Interdiscplinary Social Sciences. The presentation titled "In Three Dimensions: Art, Machinima, and the Virtual Community\", was meant to demonstrate how two communities in a virtual world work together--artists and machinimatographers--to make artistic creations cross the barriers between second and first life. They showed 5 machinima based on 3D virtual artwork and talked about the collaborative community of artists and machinimatographers in Second Life. At the UWA in Second Life SIM, we had live participants to answer questions from the conference audience, including Hypatia Pickens, FreeWee Ling, Laslopantomik Yao, Bryn Oh, L1aura Loire, Fuschia Nightfire, Rowan Derryth, and Tutsy Navarathna.

The live audience were enthralled and had lots to say, and while almost all of them had heard of Second Life previously, none of them had experienced it as they did during the presentation.

The group visited Nish Mip's 'Umbrellas', Grand Finale winner of the inaugural UWA 3D art challenge to show the audience an immersive 3D artwork.

The previous day, Barcelona's own Laslopantomik Yao had shown off some of the wonderful hospitality of Spain. Jay Jay commented, 'Laslo is the first person I have met from outside of Australia that I originally knew through Second Life'.

These machinima are now part of the L$725,000,MachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdom. MachinimUWA V's theme is a tribute to the Centenary of the University of Western Australia and UWA'sNew Courses 2012.Entries toMachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdomclose on the 30th of June 2012 and seeks for the creation of machinima with any storyline that fits to the theme of 'Seek Wisdom' so long as at least ONE of the 100 Treasures from UWAform part of the story. ClickHEREfor full details and landmarks to the locations of the treasures in Second Life.

2 presentations will be made, the first a joint presentation with Professor Sarah Higley of the University of Rochester, “In Three Dimensions: Art, Machinima, and the Virtual Community" on the 25th of June. As part of the presentation, special guest appearances will be made by L1aura Loire (Professor Lori Landay), Bryn Oh, Tutsy Navarathna, Rowan Derryth, Fuschia Nightfire and Barcelona's very own Laslopantomik Yao.

The second presentation, “The University of Western Australia 3D Art Challenges: Virtual Promotion of an Art Community” on the 27th of June is one that will be presented by Jay Jay but which was jointly developed in collaboration with Merle Hearns (SL: Briarmelle Quintessa) of the Manukau Institute of Technology.

Commenting on the presentations, Jay Jay said, "This is the first time I am actually presenting at an academic conference. I have contributed a number of times to papers presented at conferences, but this is the first time I will be there. I can't speak enough about how much support, guidance and encouragement I have had from Sarah and Merle in the lead up to this. They are true superstars!"
.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Mimesis Monday's simply surreal Dialogging and aquaglo's amazingly titled, aquarian age themed Wisdom for 2012: God is Alive - Magic is Afoot are the latest works in for MachinimUWA V!

These machinima are now part of the L$725,000,MachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdom. MachinimUWA V's theme is a tribute to the Centenary of the University of Western Australia and UWA'sNew Courses 2012.Entries toMachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdomclose
on the 30th of June 2012 and seeks for the creation of machinima with
any storyline that fits to the theme of 'Seek Wisdom' so long as at
least ONE of the 100 Treasures from UWAform part of the story. ClickHEREfor full details and landmarks to the locations of the treasures in Second Life.

Today's presentation was triggered by a short film entitled 'Seek Wisdom' submitted by Soda Lemondrop of Monterey California to the ongoing UWA short animated film challenge, MachinimUWA V, which asks that film be created with the theme of 'Seek Wisdom' and the rule that each film must feature at least one of the 100 Treasures from UWA. This film which is less than 4 and a half minutes in length traces important stages in the life of Professor Marshall leading to him being awarded the Nobel Prize.

Commenting after the presentation, Barry said, "It is nice to be immortalized on Second Life. It would be useful to
create a stomach environment as seen by an H.Pylori! There is a poster
of this at the Nobel Prize website."

Still Watching, by Hypatia Pickens is a tribute to the work of Rose Borchovski. Featuring UWA's Moreton Bay Fig, Hypatia describes this work as follows, "Rose Borchovski's multi-faceted and heart-rending exhibit in Second Life: a
mother, Beth, and her young daughter, Lot, have become separated during the war.
Beth's bereavement has no closure. "The Inevitability of Fate" is a title with a
double meaning, as "lot" in Dutch means "fate." What Lot's inevitability is
remains unknown, and I hope to have kept it so, even if I have given her a voice
in this film"

This machinima is now part of the L$725,000,MachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdom. MachinimUWA V's theme is a tribute to the Centenary of the University of Western Australia and UWA'sNew Courses 2012.Entries toMachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdomclose
on the 30th of June 2012 and seeks for the creation of machinima with
any storyline that fits to the theme of 'Seek Wisdom' so long as at
least ONE of the 100 Treasures from UWAform part of the story. ClickHEREfor full details and landmarks to the locations of the treasures in Second Life.

Taking us back to days of yore in the search for wisdom is Larkworthy Antfarm, with 'First Emperor'. This brilliant period piece stars Pinetree Sungsoo,
Iemitsu Nakamura, Josiane Llewellyn and filmed at Qinhuai - The Jade Lute Mansion, The Great Wall of China,
Sichuan, Tomb of the Warriors, Tenth Rua in Second Life.

This machinima is now part of the L$725,000,MachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdom. MachinimUWA V's theme is a tribute to the Centenary of the University of Western Australia and UWA'sNew Courses 2012.Entries toMachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdomclose
on the 30th of June 2012 and seeks for the creation of machinima with
any storyline that fits to the theme of 'Seek Wisdom' so long as at
least ONE of the 100 Treasures from UWAform part of the story. ClickHEREfor full details and landmarks to the locations of the treasures in Second Life.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

June, my favorite month of the year!
I had a birthday and yes, it was fine! Thank you to everyone at UWA in SL and
artists in the art world who have been kind to me and put up with my questions
(some of them might have been silly or difficult to answer, but thanks for
understanding my curiosity :) ). I've even made some good friends in the art
world, friends that I know I can always chat with about anything art or
whatever. Thank you, grazie, gracias, merci, danke, xie xie....from the bottom
of my heart for doing what you do best.....creating amazing work in SL! You are
the best!

This month at LEA6 isDB Bailey's In A
Tizzy. The entire gallery was dedicated to Bettina Tizzy, creator of NPIRL,
Not Possible in Real Life.

It is truly a magnificent architectural work. DB Bailey, David
Denton in RL, is an architect. You can see how he incorporates different
building styles throughout his Full Sim body of work. His website ishere.

Above is my favorite part of
his work. I wanted to zoom out and capture a large portion of it. If I had
zoomed in, you would be able to see a fountain in the center of the room. The
design is marvellous and original, in my opinion. The colors are great too.
Further back, those spires remind me of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

What is NPIRL?

DB: NPIRL stands for “Not Possible
in Real Life.” It was organized by Bettina to encourage designers to not simply
replicate the real world in SL, but to explore the potential of SL to create
whole new realities.

When did you meett Bettina Tizzy?

DB: I first met Bettina about five
years ago, when I first started working with SL. After numerous conversations
in SL, it came to light that in fact we lived a couple of blocks from each
other in RL.

We had dinner several times in California before she moved to
Austin.

Did you use mesh?

No mesh was
used in this installation

In A Tizzy is based on this
recurring dream you have. From your description at blog it seems that you don't
believe dreams have any meaning. So you would disagree with those who think
that dreams are trying to tell us something about life? One way to look at your
dream is that life is a series of events that don't seem to be connected in any
way and we don't know where they will lead us, but we find ourself compelled to
explore and follow the path before us.

Or perhaps the dream is a message to not try to
figure out life, but just enjoy the ride and just let ourselves feel and just
"be here now", as Ram Dass said.Just to clarify, I was not
stating my own belief about dreams, but noting that some scientists now believe
that they have no particular meaning. I guess I would agree with Ram Dass, it’s
better just to enjoy the ride.

DB: Just to clarify, I was not stating my own belief about dreams, but
noting that some scientists now believe that they have no particular meaning. I
guess I would agree with Ram Dass, it’s better just to enjoy the ride.

At your website, it
says you collaborated with someone for a SL building project? When did that
begin? Do you have an LM for that?

DB: Yes, I did collaborate with an
architect in SL to design a project in RL. The project was located in Cairo,
Egypt and the collaboration was with an Egyptian architect. If you Google
“David Denton Architect” you will find numerous articles on this
collaboration.

I noticed some of
the textures in your LEA build came right from your website.

Some of the textures might look familiar, because I frequently
photograph installations using textures and then use those photographs as new
textures in other builds. Thus the history of the projects is sometimes
embedded into the textures themselves and look familiar.

Did I see lightning
bolts throughout the sim? That's interesting. Were those part of your dream?

DB: The lightning bolts that
you saw are now gone. I am constantly changing things and those lightning bolts
were giving me a headache.

Going here each time feels like a
familiar yet new experience. I noticed that he changes the textures of the
walls at the landing area. One can't help but marvel at the structures. The
colors are so vibrant, shiny, and vivid. It is definitely an experience not to
be missed!

Monday, June 18, 2012

The quest for wisdom is as much a quest about the internal as it is the external, and Bleu Oleander's 'enough about me' demonstrates this beautifully!

This machinima is now part of the L$725,000,MachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdom. MachinimUWA V's theme is a tribute to the Centenary of the University of Western Australia and UWA'sNew Courses 2012.Entries toMachinimUWA V: Seek Wisdomclose on the 30th of June 2012 and seeks for the creation of machinima with any storyline that fits to the theme of 'Seek Wisdom' so long as at least ONE of the 100 Treasures from UWAform part of the story. ClickHEREfor full details and landmarks to the locations of the treasures in Second Life.